Enable this Chrome Flag to Lock Rotation in Fullscreen Videos

At XDA, when we aren’t covering news that we think is important for the day or publishing an in-depth analysis piece, we like to plug the gap with interesting projects, rumors, and tips. Just yesterday, I posted a tip that reminded users of a useful Chrome flag that has undergone improvements. Today, I bring you another useful Chrome flag: lock the screen orientation when playing a fullscreen video.

Lock screen orientation when playing a video fullscreen.

Android Lock the screen orientation of the device to match video orientation when a video goes fullscreen. Only on phones.

Available in the Dev and Canary channels of the Google Chrome browser for Android, this flag will lock the screen orientation of the device to match the video’s orientation whenever you make the video go fullscreen. This should be useful for those times you are watching a video while laying in bed and you tend to accidentally flip the video (probably happens to a lot of us out there). Here is a before and after video demonstrating the flag in action:

As you can see, once enabled the video is automatically set to the proper rotation based on the video’s most prominent orientation. Furthermore, I am prevented from changing the rotation of the video when I physically rotate my device (although you can’t see me flip my phone in the video). No longer will you need to fumble with changing your quick settings or using Tasker to automate changing the rotation lock in certain apps. Now, Google Chrome will handle that for you – provided you’re viewing a fullscreen video, of course.

In order to enable this flag, simply paste the following URL into the address bar. Remember that this feature is considered experimental and it is entirely possible it won’t make it to the stable release of Chrome. I haven’t encountered any major issues with this flag enabled, though, so I’m optimistic it will roll out to all Chrome channels eventually.

About Author

Long-time Android enthusiast starting from all the way back to the Sprint HTC Hero. Partial to the Nexus line, but open to try anything with Android on it. XDA's resident master of everything Tasker.
Please direct media inquiries to mishaal@xda-developers.com

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